Advances in technology generally and networking specifically have resulted in electronic communications becoming more prevalent in modern society. Whereas historically, people would send written messages via the postal service, or place voice calls via the public switched telephone network (“PSTN”) today many such communications are electronic in nature (e.g. email, instant messaging, voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”), etc.) As a result of this evolution to electronic communications, it has become easier to track communications between various entities.
It has long been understood that business success depends not only on what you know, but on who you know. However, while advances have been made in analyzing and leveraging institutional knowledge, very little success has been achieved in the realm of ‘Human Capital’ (the value of people in terms of who they know and the ‘actionable knowledge’ that resides in their heads). While documented information represents cold facts, ‘actionable knowledge’ represents the understanding that a person brings to such information and how that information can be applied to a changing environment. If such value could be leveraged at the enterprise level then such collective intelligence would yield great productivity improvements benefiting such areas as sales, product development and innovation.
In recognition of the value relationships have, companies have begun to invest in categorizing people and their relationships, for example customer relationships. However, such systems are static, limited (by product or customer) and stored in silo systems like customer relationship management (“CRM”) applications, billing systems and contact databases. Thus, little value is generated from Human Capital. Cross selling opportunities go unrealized because sales representatives are not aware of relationships that exist. Innovation is staid and product development too slow because organizations are unable to leverage the collective intelligence of its employees inside, and its partners outside, the firewall—the collective ‘who you know’ and ‘what you know’.
The following articles, existing technology and companies illustrate conventional attempts to leverage the knowledge gleaned from communications: Microsoft SNARF™, Netform™, Orgnet INFLOW™, Two Crows™, Know How Inc., Analytic Technologies™, Cyram Co. NetMiner™, The Vancouver Network Analysis Team™, IBM™, Morphix Company™, Zachman Institute™, Organization Effectiveness Consultants™, various software listed that can be found at http://www.insna.org/INSNA/soft_inf.html, an article that can be found at http://stat.gamma.rug.nl/snijders/Software%20for%20Social%20Network%20Analysis%20CUP_ch13_Oct2003.pdf, a press release that can be found at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/75ece1b2-a444-11dd-8104-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1, The Social Network Company Mindset™, Five Across™ (acquired by Cisco), Small World Labs™, Leverage Software™, Social Platform™, Ning™, KickApps™, Crowdvine™, GoingOn™, CollectiveX™, Me.com™, Broadband Mechanics PeopleAgregator™, Cerado Haystack™, OneSite™, phpFox™, GibLink™, Visible Path™, Select Minds™, Event Robot™, Web Crossing™, IntroNetworks™, Social Engine™, IBM Lotus Connections™, Contact Networks ConnectNet™, Lexis/Nexis InterAction™, Tacit ActiveNet™ and Illumino™ and Connectbeam.
It would be advantageous to provide a system for optimizing Human Capital. It would also be advantageous to provide systems and methods for optimizing Human Capital by tracking the number of communications between entities and determining information about those relationships based on the existence of those communications. It would be further advantageous to provide systems and methods for classifying relationships between entities based at least in part on the methods of communications and the volume of communications.